Computer Security: Principles and Practice, 2nd Edition
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 – Cryptographic Tools
TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS:
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F
1. Symmetric encryption is used primarily to provide confidentiality.
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F
2. Two of the most important applications of public-key encryption are
digital signatures and key management.
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F
3. Cryptanalytic attacks try every possible key on a piece of ciphertext
until an intelligible translation into plaintext is obtained.
T
F
4. The secret key is input to the encryption algorithm.
T
F
5. Triple DES takes a plaintext block of 64 bits and a key of 56 bits to
produce a ciphertext block of 64 bits.
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F
6. Modes of operation are the alternative techniques that have been
developed to increase the security of symmetric block encryption for
large sequences of data.
T
F
7. The advantage of a stream cipher is that you can reuse keys.
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F
8. A message authentication code is a small block of data generated by a
secret key and appended to a message.
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9. Like the MAC, a hash function also takes a secret key as input.
T
F
10. The strength of a hash function against brute-force attacks depends
solely on the length of the hash code produced by the algorithm.
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F
11. Public-key cryptography is asymmetric.
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F
12. Public-key algorithms are based on simple operations on bit patterns.
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F
13. The purpose of the DSS algorithm is to enable two users to securely
reach agreement about a shared secret that can be used as a secret key
for subsequent symmetric encryption of messages.
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14. An important element in many computer security services and
applications is the use of cryptographic algorithms.
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15. Some form of protocol is needed for public-key distribution.
Computer Security: Principles and Practice, 2nd Edition
Chapter 2
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS:
1. The original message or data that is fed into the algorithm is __________.
2.
A. encryption algorithm
B. secret key
C. decryption algorithm
D. plaintext
The __________ is the encryption algorithm run in reverse.
A. decryption algorithm
B. plaintext
C. ciphertext
D. encryption algorithm
3. __________ is the scrambled message produced as output.
A. Plaintext
B. Ciphertext
C. Secret key
D. Cryptanalysis
4. On average, __________ of all possible keys must be tried in order to achieve
success with a brute-force attack.
A. one-fourth
B. half
C. two-thirds
D. three-fourths
5. The most important symmetric algorithms, all of which are block ciphers, are the
DES, triple DES, and the __________.
A. SHA
B. RSA
C. AES
D. DSS
6. If the only form of attack that could be made on an encryption algorithm is bruteforce, then the way to counter such attacks would be to __________ .
A. use longer keys
B. use shorter keys
C. use more keys
D. use less keys
Computer Security: Principles and Practice, 2nd Edition
Chapter 2
7. __________ is a procedure that allows communicating parties to verify that received
or stored messages are authentic.
A. Cryptanalysis
B. Decryption
C. Message authentication D. Collision resistance
8. The purpose of a __________ is to produce a “fingerprint” of a file, message, or
other block of data.
A. secret key
B. digital signature
C. keystream
D. hash function
9. __________ is a block cipher in which the plaintext and ciphertext are integers
between 0 and n-1 for some n.
A. DSS
B. RSA
C. SHA
C. AES
10. A __________ is created by using a secure hash function to generate a hash value
for a message and then encrypting the hash code with a private key.
A. digital signature
B. keystream
C. one way hash function
D. secret key
11. Transmitted data stored locally are referred to as __________ .
A. ciphertext
C. data at rest
B. DES
D. ECC
12. Digital signatures and key management are the two most important applications of
__________ encryption.
A. private-key
B. public-key
C. preimage resistant
C. advanced
Computer Security: Principles and Practice, 2nd Edition
Chapter 2
13. A __________ is to try every possible key on a piece of ciphertext until an
intelligible translation into plaintext is obtained.
A. mode of operation
B. hash function
C. cryptanalysis
D. brute-force attack
14. Combined one byte at a time with the plaintext stream using the XOR operation, a
__________ is the output of the pseudorandom bit generator.
A. keystream
B. digital signature
C. secure hash
D. message authentication code
15. A _________ protects against an attack in which one party generates a message for
another party to sign.
A. data authenticator
B. strong hash function
C. weak hash function
D. digital signature
SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS:
1. Also referred to as single-key encryption, the universal technique for providing
confidentiality for transmitted or stored data is _symmetric encryption_ .
2. There are two general approaches to attacking a symmetric encryption scheme:
cryptanalytic attacks and ____brute-force______ attacks.
3. The ____decryption______ algorithm takes the ciphertext and the secret key and
produces
the original plaintext.
4. A _____cryptanalytic_____ attack exploits the characteristics of the algorithm to
attempt to deduce a specific plaintext or to deduce the key being used.
5. A ____block cipher______ processes the plaintext input in fixed-size blocks and
produces a block of ciphertext of equal size for each plaintext block.
6. A ____stream cipher______ processes the input elements continuously,
producing output one element at a time.
7. Public-key encryption was first publicly proposed by _____Diffie and
Hellman_____ in 1976.
Computer Security: Principles and Practice, 2nd Edition
Chapter 2
8. The two criteria used to validate that a sequence of numbers is random are
independence and _____uniform distribution____ .
9. A ____back-end appliance_____ is a hardware device that sits between servers
and storage systems and encrypts all data going from the server to the storage
system and decrypts data going in the opposite direction.
10. In July 1998 the ____Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)______ announced
that it had broken a DES encryption using a special purpose “DES cracker”
machine.
11. The simplest approach to multiple block encryption is known as _____electronic
codebook (ECB)_____ mode, in which plaintext is handled b bits at a time and
each block of plaintext is encrypted using the same key.
12. A ____pseudorandom______ stream is one that is unpredictable without
knowledge of the input key and which has an apparently random character.
13. The ____public and private key______ is a pair of keys that have been selected
so that if one is used for encryption, the other is used for decryption.
14. _____library-based tape encryption_____ is provided by means of a coprocessor board embedded in the tape drive and tape library hardware.
15. The purpose of the ____Diffie-Hellman Key Agreement______ algorithm is to
enable two users to securely reach agreement about a shared secret that can be
used as a secret key for subsequent symmetric encryption of messages.